Saturday, May 03, 2014

JLA: Year One #8 - Aug. 1998

"Loose Ends" by Mark Waid, Brian Augustyn, and Barry Kitson.

As the plot to take over the world and destroy the JLA continues apace, the League members are dealing with the sting of rejection from The Man of Steel. Green Lantern in particular takes it in stride:

Aquaman points out that Superman dealt with one of the Apellax meteors that the League didn't know about...so who's to say there aren't more out there? Right on cue, Snapper Carr tells the heroes that, according to some NASA data he hacked, there was an eighth!The JLA goes to search for it, with Green Lantern in particular acting strange. He's rude to both Flash and Aquaman in particular:

Hal continues to be a jerk, even in his civilian life back at Ferris Aircraft, ordering his pal Tom around. Green Arrow (who shows up to help find the meteor) thinks Lantern is just being a big baby, sore about being turned down by Superman. Meanwhile, Snapper is doing some work in one of the Secret Sanctuary's Jeffries Tubes, and discovers...a spy!

He brings photos of the spy to the team, but the mysterious invader looks different each time one of the JLAers takes a look at the film Snapper recorded. Turns out it's...the Martian Manhunter? The others smash their way into J'Onn's room, and find something even more disturbing:

As if things aren't bad enough, outside the man who has been having visions of the world ending is trying to reach the JLA, believing they are the only ones that can stop it. But he is shot to death by Snapper's Uncle Simon, who is part of the conspiracy itself! To be continued!

It's interesting to see how Mark Waid borrowed from itself: in a year or two he would have Batman be the one keeping files on his JLA teammates in the "Tower of Babel" storyline, though of course at this point in the storyline we don't know to what ends J'Onn has for all the snooping. That said, if I had been J'Onn and Snapper had talked to me like he did on page 20, I would have Martian Heat Visioned the little punk and called it a day.

I liked the moment of Aquaman telling Green Lantern off; it's true to the character and while it not make him Mr. Popular, it only underlines of the reasons I like him so much as a hero.